Seventy-seven years after his “boss”, Jean Moulin, Daniel Cordier joined his brothers in the Order of the Night.
In the Cour d'honneur of the Invalides, the nation paid him on Thursday the homage due to a soldier, whose coffin was carried, under the eyes of the last surviving Companion of the Liberation, Hubert Germain, by student officers from Saint- Cyr Coëtquidan.
And the symbol was important for the last farewell to a man who regretted not having fought and who, in 2009, said in his Memoirs:
“If I had to do it again, I would not do it again.
I had signed up to “kill du Boche”.
Alas, I didn't kill any of them.
I did not fight the real war. ”
To read also:
Daniel Cordier, the "accidental historian", is dead
It is, however, a fighter, a shadow soldier with an important and long unknown role that the Head of State paid tribute on Thursday.
By bowing first to the flag of the 44th Infantry Regiment.
The unit to which are attached the military personnel assigned to the DGSE, heir to the traditions of the intelligence service and clandestine actions of Free France in which Daniel Cordier served from 1941 to 1946.
A
"masterful historian"
In a sober speech but with very personal accents, Emmanuel Macron, visibly moved, first wanted to evoke
"the luminous lightness"
of the deceased, his
"elegant modesty when the honors were paid to him"
.
"To see us gathered here, Daniel Cordier would undoubtedly have smiled, he would have looked at us with that smile of an eternal child, would have said a few words in a breath and would have taken his leave no doubt simply by laughing."
However, recalls the President of the Republic, this man,
“at 20 years old, in 1940, was part of the resistance fighters from the very beginning, of those who remained standing when everything collapsed, ready to make any sacrifices so that France remained. France ”
.
So
“anti-republican nationalist”
, Cordier prefers
“to die for France than to risk a life without her”
.
In London, in contact with
"some, like Raymond Aron or Stéphane Hessel,
(his)
convictions change, man is transformed"
.
To read also:
Resistance fighters: who were they?
“At 100 years old, in this year 2020
, specifies Emmanuel Macron under the gaze of the centenary Germain in a green beret, flanked by a“ Cyrard ”and a legionnaire, (Cordier) was
part of this last square of the Guard, soldiers of the free French forces, agents of the Republic of the catacombs ”
.
Parachuted in France in 1942 and became the
“right arm of Rex”
for nearly a year, Cordier
“created around Jean Moulin a real clandestine staff, provided radio links between Lyon and London, wrote telegrams and encrypted them. and deciphers them, distributes the money to the various resistance movements ”
.
In a world of
"permanent suspicion of everything and everyone"
,
"where betrayal and denunciation lurk"
, a
"war behind closed doors in apartments with curtains drawn, a war that we live alone and in secret"
.
Under a November sun, the words of the Head of State also recalled that Daniel Cordier was, after the soldier in the shadows, a soldier of remembrance, a
"masterful historian"
, a
"living memory"
, the author of a
“Tomb of the Resistance”
.
Through his uncompromising work on it, in all its political and social diversity, far from pathos, beautiful formulas and junk romanticism.
It is also appropriate, in these times of ecumenical praise, to recall the ferocity of the debates in which he took part and the accusations and calumnies he faced and which will perhaps resurface tomorrow.
A soldier of memory, Cordier was finally also a soldier through his commitment to the Order of the Liberation and on Thursday, we remembered another ceremony in November in the same Cour des Invalides.
Eight years ago almost to the day, in freezing cold and with his surviving comrades, that day he passed the torch of memory to the Compagnon de la Liberation communes (Vassieux-en-Vercors, Sein, Nantes, Grenoble and Paris).
We also thought of Moulin
Finally, if it was not time for politics, Emmanuel Macron greeted a man
"in love with a France without chains"
and told him:
"Dear Daniel, this flame that you lit with your companions, 'will not turn off, I will see to it and it will continue to inspire many more. ”
At the time of the farewell to arms, we remembered that Daniel Cordier took a public stand just once.
On April 30, 2017, a week before the second round of the presidential election, he did not mince words:
“When I imagine Marine Le Pen representing France, I find that monstrous.
(She)
represents the negation of everything we have fought for.
It is the France of reaction, it is the France of Maurras that continues. ”
To read also:
Éric Anceau: "Enter here, Daniel Cordier, to the Pantheon of the Free French!"
Beyond death, this message, that of an old man reminding an old country of civil wars that his wounds are still alive, still echoed Thursday in the shadow of the dome of the Invalides. As a final proof of loyalty to his "boss", Prefect of the Republic. Because we also thought of Moulin, again and again, looking at Cordier's coffin, draped in a tricolor and greeted Thursday by the bell to the dead, the
Marseillaise
and the
Partisan song
. Moulin, of which General de Gaulle wrote in his
Mémoires de guerre
:
"Terribly tortured by an enemy without honor,
(he)
died for France like so many good soldiers who, under the sun or in the shade, sacrificed a long empty evening. to better “fill their morning”
.
"
